The present invention relates to a copying machine equipped with a document collating apparatus (collator) and, more particularly, to an improved copying machine with a collator which is provided with a manual sheet insertion device.
Generally, a collator has a plurality of sheet storing bins arranged one upon another and operates in a collation mode to distribute a set of copy sheets one by one into individual bins. The collator is also operable in a sorting or assortment mode in which copy sheets are fed or delivered successively into a single bin until a predetermined number is reached and then copy sheets are fed in the same way to the next bin.
A conventional copying machine with a collator usually has such a design that, after the completion of exposure, the copying operation for the next document page can be started. This inherent design brings about the following problem where there is a relatively long copy conveyance path including the copying machine body and collator, and sheets become jammed in such a conveyance path.
A conventional practice to deal with jammed copy sheets is either to pick them up from the copy conveyance path and manually put them in determined bins of a collator or to practically waste them even if they are acceptable with a view to avoiding awkwardness. However, when the copy sheets were put in the bins by manual work, the remaining number of sheets to undergo further copying cycles needs be determined by troublesome calculation. It is sometimes desired during collation or assortment with a collator to divide each volume of copy sheets into multiple sections by interposing colored or like non-copied sheets between intended pages. To achieve this purpose with a conventional collator, operator must manually deliver such additional sheets directly into selected bins or feed them from an additional sheet cassette positioned in advance in the copying machine and process them into monochromatic copies with use of a monochromatic document sheet. These monochromatic copies will travel the conveyance path in the copying machine and out therefrom into the bins of the collator as ordinary copy sheets do.
Thus, in connection with prior art collators, operator has to perform very troublesome work to deal with sheet jams and the like or very intricate manipulation when he desires to introduce colored or like additional sheets other than copy sheets into the collators.